Posted on 10/28/2011 5:09:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
Kate Bolick stares out at the world from the cover of The Atlantic magazine. She's wearing a black lace evening dress. "What, Me Marry?" asks the headline. She isn't smiling.
In fact, she isn't smiling in any of the photos that accompany her several thousand-word essay on singleness, marriage and the changing nature of dating and mating in America today. Bolick, 38, is groping toward accepting the idea that she may never marry. She badly wants to convince herself -- and us -- that older ideas about "unhappy" spinsters are silly cultural baggage best dropped off at the curb. And yet, there are those glamour shots -- Bolick behind the wheel wearing a fetching red dress; Bolick in a gold evening gown holding a glass of champagne; Bolick in a black cocktail dress -- but her expressions range from pensive to sad -- never happy.
Bolick seems genuinely conflicted about marriage. The daughter of a committed feminist, she marched off to third grade "in tiny green or blue T-shirts declaring: A WOMAN WITHOUT A MAN IS LIKE A FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE." She recalls that when she was cuddling in the back seat of the family car with her high school boyfriend, her mother turned around and asked, "Isn't it time you two started seeing other people?" She took it for granted, she writes, "that (I) would marry, and that there would always be men (I) wanted to marry."
So sure was she of the limitless romantic opportunities available that at the age of 28, she broke up with a wonderful boyfriend. They had been together for three years. He was "an exceptional person, intelligent, good-looking, loyal, kind." Why did she discard him? "Something was missing."
Ten years later, she writes somewhat (though not entirely) ruefully "If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace . . . today we're contending with a new 'dating gap,' where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with either deadbeats or players."
There is a great deal of interesting data in this piece. According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Millennials and 43 percent of Gen Xers think marriage is becoming obsolete. As of 2010, women held 51.4 percent of all managerial and professional positions, compared with 26 percent in 1980. Women account for the lion's share of bachelors and masters degrees, and make up a majority of the work force. Three quarters of the jobs lost during the recession were lost by men. "One recent study found a 40 percent increase in the number of men who are shorter than their wives." Fully 50 percent of the adult population is single, compared with 33 percent in 1950.
But these trends, however interesting, shed only an oblique light on the problem of the decline in marriageable males. Bolick edges closer to the truth in her discussion of sex.
"The early 1990s," she writes, "witnessed the dawn of the '"hookup culture"' at universities, as colleges stopped acting in loco parentis (actually they relinquished that role in the 1970s) and undergraduates . . . started throwing themselves into a frenzy of one-night-stands." Some young women, she notes, felt "forced into a promiscuity they didn't ask for," whereas young men "couldn't be happier."
According to economist Robert H. Frank, "when available women significantly outnumber men . . . courtship behavior changes in the direction of what men want." And vice versa. If there's a shortage of women, the females have more power to demand what they want, which tends to be (surprise!) monogamy. On college campuses, women outnumber men by 57 to 43 percent.
But economic analysis can take you only so far. Men's capacity to insist upon promiscuity rests completely on female cooperation. And women have been foolishly compliant for decades.
They've conspired in their own disempowerment, not because they love their sexual freedom (though a few may), but because people like Gloria Steinem and Ms. Bolick's mother convinced them that the old sexual mores, along with marriage and children, were oppressive to women.
The resulting decline of marriage has been a disaster for children, a deep disappointment to reluctantly single women and unhealthy for single men, who are less happy, shorter-lived and less wealthy than married men. The sexual revolution has left a trail of destruction in its wake, even when its victims don't recognize the perpetrator.
But her looks cannot really be ascribed to "homeliness"--- what you see is the unhappiness. Or, in truth, the unhappy combination of disappointment + resentment + funk.
You can look at somebody who's frankly ugly as a stump, and who is further burdened with age, illness, and sorrow too, and still see someone who attracts you and gives you joy though you can't say why.
The reasons you read mostly about female teachers having sex with male pupils is that it´s a “man bites dog”-story, and hence has media appeal.
No doubt feminism has increased the frequency of events, but it´s still a non-standard narrative. Also, it´s a relatively socially accepted phenomenon, something lampooned in the South Park episode “Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Teacher_Bangs_a_Boy
>>Alpha males, I.e. sexually desirable males who know how to navigate the new sexual marketplace (I.e. men who have “game”)<<
I used to enjoy pissing off the feminists where I worked in Seattle by saying, when any “sexual revolution” stuff came up, “When I want to get in touch with my feminine side, I reach for my wife. And my wife responds similarly when she wants to get in touch with her masculine side. i.e. she reaches out for me.”
It bugged them that I unapologetically was proud of my maleness with all of its strengths and weaknesses.
Thanks.
The three words that a woman most loves to hear are NOT "I love you", but are "I wuz wrong"
Learn it early enough fellows, and you can save yourself a lot of anguish. Doesn't matter if you were really wrong, or not. give her what she wants, and she will give you what you want.
Hey, to people living a lie, the truth hurts.
—Men judge women primarily by their looks.
Women judge men primarily by their status, which in this country is determined by their wallet, for the most part.
Neither characteristic says much about the value of the human being. Those who judge in such ways sort of deserve each other.—
I think you nailed where they each have weaknesses. That is why pinups of males are nowhere near as popular as pinups of women.
That said, both sexes do have their good side. Men actually LIKE to be men for the woman they love and women actually LIKE being women for the man they love.
I like to say it this way to engaged young people: If you want to marry this person because they make you happy, you are in for a world of hurt. If you want to marry this person because you want to make them happy - and they feel the same about you - you may be looking to enjoy a fruitful and productive married life. I say “may”, because people change.
Men develop fetishes more easily than women do--it's because of how easily they are stimulated visually. I think that is part of some of homosexuality.
gotta say “bump.”
I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads
And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds
If you're worried and you can't sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings
I agree with you about the porn - it’s the compulsion to post unoriginal misogynistic lists that I find pathetic.
I couldn´t disagree more.
A man who consistently lays himself prostrate before his woman will find himself with divorce papers in his hand much, much quicker than a man who just blows off whatever little test his woman has brewed up this week (”You´re holding the mop all wrong!”, “Does this make me look fat?”), preferably with a bit of wit...
-——Neither characteristic says much about the value of the human being.———
To make such a statement means you fundamentally misunderstand the situation.
The purpose of life is sex and procreation. All other functions are secondary to those two. Looks and wealth are fundamental indicators of procreative results.
The value you suggest is irrelevant
“That being said, women are now and have always been in complete control of their bodies.”
Ask any women in Iran or Saudi Arabia?
I must be in a time warp. Met my wife in my last year of college, and married the next year. That was 40 years ago.
Think it might have stuck.
At this stage of life we are more focused on taking care of our parents than our own lives. Lost my father-in-law 2 years ago, mother-in-law has lived with use for 1-1/2 years (has not walked in 2 years -strokes). my mother has cancer and dementia and my father just had quadruple bypass surgery. We need to have a wing in a hospital (hee hee)
And I have a 36 year old son at home who has serious health issues.
But this is what we do.
Now tell me why “sex” is what is wrong with American men.
By the way I live in the middle of the “Big Nothing”, where life is still somewhat sane. My ancestors moved here in the late 1880’s. We still farm some of the land they originally bought and a bit more.
I dunno. There is a lot of porn in that list.
I think 10 is spin. I have three daughters and I think women raised in the US culture are poison to men. If I were a young man today I might consider learning Spanish and look to Mexico. The men down there make american men look like angels. And the women there are “old fashioned”. What that means is that they understand that men and women have different roles and wish to please their spouse, as opposed to constantly complaining that their spouse is not pleasing them.
Men and women both have their problems in the US, and I think you did touch on a few (especially porn) regarding american males. But what completely changes the equation is american family court. It totally screws men and empowers VERY bad behaved women. Again, that is why roughly 80% of divorces are brought on by the wife.
I was always painfully shy, and socially awkward. Although I have a pretty high intelligence, and a PHD in engineering, I had a hard time picking up on social signals. I was way beyond nerd.
It has only been in recent years that I have discovered why. I have a daughter with Asperger's syndrome. Even before she was diagnosed, I noticed that the things I disliked most in her were the same things that I most disliked in myself. It seems that in children with Asperger's, usually one of the parents, generally the father, has milder symptoms of the same type.
I'm pretty non-confrontational, right until I've had enough, when I can go off like a firecracker. Generally I have to be pushed pretty far, but I do have definite lines beyond which I will NOT be pushed. So that might come off as "weak". But don't cross the lines.
Finally, status is determined in a social situation. I actively avoid all social situations that I am not required to be in. I am an alpha introvert.
However, if "alphaness" is determined by the attractiveness of one's wife, I might certainly qualify.
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